[🇺🇦] Monitoring Russian and Ukraine War.

[Saif]

Russia launches scores of drones on Ukraine, four people injured, Kyiv says

Russia launched a barrage of drones in an overnight attack on Ukraine, injuring four people and damaging residential and commercial buildings in Kyiv and other parts of the country, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday. Ukraine's air defences shot down 56 of 88 Russian drones, its air force said.

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Russia launches scores of drones on Ukraine, four people injured, Kyiv says
REUTERS
Published :
Apr 12, 2025 20:06
Updated :
Apr 12, 2025 20:06

A drone explodes in the sky over the city during a Russian drone strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine April 12, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Gleb Garanich

Russia launched a barrage of drones in an overnight attack on Ukraine, injuring four people and damaging residential and commercial buildings in Kyiv and other parts of the country, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday.

Ukraine's air defences shot down 56 of 88 Russian drones, its air force said. It added that 24 drones were "lost" as the military used electronic warfare to redirect them.

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Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitchko said that three people were injured in the capital as a result of the drone attacks.

Drone debris also destroyed a private house and damaged several commercial buildings, causing large fires in different parts of Kyiv, city officials said.

One more person was wounded in the city of Kharkiv in the northeast, Kharkiv's mayor, Ihor Terekhov, said.

Regional officials also said that residential and commercial buildings were damaged in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, and the military reported damage in the Odesa region in the south.​

 

[Saif]

Trump envoy suggests allied zones of control in Ukraine

Keith Kellogg, US president Donald Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, suggested British and French troops could adopt zones of control in the country, in an interview with The Times newspaper published Saturday.

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Trump envoy suggests allied zones of control in Ukraine
Agence France-Presse . London, United Kingdom 13 April, 2025, 00:43

US president Donald Trump. | File photo

Keith Kellogg, US president Donald Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, suggested British and French troops could adopt zones of control in the country, in an interview with The Times newspaper published Saturday.

Kellogg suggested they could have areas of responsibility west of the Dnipro river, as part of a ‘reassurance force’, with a demilitarised zone separating them from Russian-occupied areas in the east.

‘You could almost make it look like what happened with Berlin after World War II, when you had a Russian zone, a French zone, and a British zone, a US zone,’ he said, later clarifying on X that the United States would not be providing troops.

‘You’re west of the [Dnipro], which is a major obstacle,’ Kellogg said, adding that the force would therefore ‘not be provocative at all’ to Russia.

He suggested that a demilitarised zone could be implemented along the existing lines of control in eastern Ukraine, The Times said.

A retired lieutenant general and former acting national security advisor during Trump’s first term, Kellogg, 80, said Ukraine was big enough to accommodate several armies seeking to enforce a ceasefire.

To make sure that British, French, Ukrainian and other allied forces do not exchange fire with Russian troops, Kellogg said a buffer zone would be needed.

‘You look at a map and you create, for lack of a better term, a demilitarised zone,’ he said. ‘You have a... DMZ that you can monitor, and you’ve got this... no-fire zone.’

But he added: ‘Now, are there going to be violations? Probably, because there always are. But your ability to monitor that is easy.’

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Kellogg admitted that Russian president Vladimir Putin ‘might not accept’ the proposal.

Kellogg later clarified his position, posting on X. ‘I was speaking of a post-ceasefire resiliency force in support of Ukraine’s sovereignty. In discussions of partitioning, I was referencing areas or zones of responsibility for an allied force [without US troops]. I was NOT referring to a partitioning of Ukraine,’ he said.

Britain and France are spearheading talks among a 30-nation ‘coalition of the willing’ on potentially deploying forces to Ukraine to shore up any ceasefire Trump may strike.

London and Paris describe the possible deployment as a ‘reassurance force’ aimed at offering Ukraine some kind of security guarantee. But many questions remain unanswered, from the size of any force, to who would contribute, what the mandate would be and whether the United States would back it up.

Putin, in power for 25 years and repeatedly elected in votes with no competition, has often questioned Volodymyr Zelensky’s ‘legitimacy’ as president, after the Ukrainian leader’s initial five-year mandate ended in May 2024.

Under Ukrainian law, elections are suspended during times of major military conflict, and Zelensky’s domestic opponents have all said no ballots should be held until after the conflict.

‘If you get to a ceasefire, you’re going to have elections,’ said Kellogg.

‘I think Zelensky is open to do that once you get to a ceasefire and once you get some resolution. But that’s a call for the Ukrainian people in the Ukrainian parliament. Not ours.’

Kellogg said relations between Ukraine and the United States were now ‘back on track’, citing resumed talks over a proposed deal on Ukraine’s mineral resources.

He said officials would try to turn a ‘business deal’ into a ‘diplomatic deal’ over the coming days.​

 

[Saif]

Russian missile strike kills 32 in Ukraine

A Russian missile strike on Ukraine’s northeastern city of Sumy killed at least 32 people, including two children, and wounded dozens on Sunday, Kyiv said, in the deadliest attack in months...

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Russian missile strike kills 32 in Ukraine
Agence France-Presse . Sumy, Ukraine 13 April, 2025, 16:26

In this handout photograph taken and released by the Ukrainian Emergency Service on Sunday, a Ukrainian rescuer works to extinguish a fire at the site of a missile attack in Sumy, northeastern Ukraine, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. | AFP photo

A Russian missile strike on Ukraine’s northeastern city of Sumy killed at least 32 people, including two children, and wounded dozens on Sunday, Kyiv said, in the deadliest attack in months.

European leaders expressed indignation at Moscow’s attack on Sumy’s city centre, while Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, pointing out it happened on Palm Sunday, said: ‘Only *&*&*&*&*&*&*&*& do this.’

French president Emmanuel Macron said it showed Russia’s ‘blatant disregard for human lives, international law and the diplomatic efforts of president Donald Trump’.

The strike came two days after US envoy Steve Witkoff travelled to Russia to meet with president Vladimir Putin and push Trump’s efforts to end the war.

Sumy lies close to the Russian border and has come under increasing attack for weeks.

The local emergency service said on social media that the latest toll was that ‘32 people died , including two children’ and that ‘84 people were injured, including 10 children’.

An AFP reporter saw bodies covered in silver sheets strewn in the centre of the city, with a destroyed trolleybus. Rescuers were seen working on the rubble of a building.

One woman said she head two explosions.

‘This second blow. A lot of people were very badly injured. A lot of corpses,’ she said, struggling to speak.

It was the second Russian attack with a large civilian death toll this month. Trump has voiced anger at Moscow for ‘bombing like crazy’ in Ukraine.

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow launched a ballistic missile on Sumy and called on the world to put pressure on Russia to end the three-year war.

He called for a ‘strong response’ from Europe and the United States, saying: ‘Talking has never stopped ballistic missiles and bombs.’

He added that the deadly attack occurred ‘on a day when people go to church: Palm Sunday, the feast of the Lord’s Entry into Jerusalem’.

Macron said the Russian attack showed what ‘everyone knows: this war was initiated by Russia alone. And today, it is clear that Russia alone chooses to continue it.’

In a statement on social media, he added: ‘Strong measures are needed to impose a ceasefire on Russia. France is working tirelessly toward this goal, alongside its partners.’

European Council chief Antonio Costa condemned the ‘criminal attack’, saying that ‘this war exists and endures only because Russia chooses so’.

Local authorities in Sumy published footage of bodies strewn on the street and people running for safety, with cars on fire and wounded civilians on the ground.

Russia has relentlessly attacked Ukraine in recent weeks, extending the violence wrought by its all-out invasion that has gone on for more than three years.

In early April, a Russian attack on the central city of Kryvyi Rig killed 18 people, including nine children.

Russia has refused a US-proposed unconditional ceasefire and been accused by Ukraine and its European allies of dragging out the war and seeking to stall efforts for peace negotiations.

Sumy has been under increasing pressure since Moscow pushed back many of Ukraine’s troops from its Kursk region inside Russia, across the border.

The eastern Ukrainian city so far has been spared the kind of fighting seen farther south, in the Donetsk region. But Kyiv for weeks has warned that Moscow could mount an offensive on Sumy.

Russia in recent weeks has claimed the capture of a village in the Sumy region, for the first time since the early days of its 2022 invasion.

Russia launched its invasion partially through the Sumy region and briefly occupied parts of it before being pushed back by Ukrainian forces.

Moscow has not yet commented on the strike.

On Sunday, it said it captured another village in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region.​

 

[Saif]

undefined | The Financial Express

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Russia says it is not easy to agree Ukraine peace deal with US
REUTERS
Published :
Apr 15, 2025 14:01
Updated :
Apr 15, 2025 14:01

A Ukrainian serviceman walks at the site of a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Sumy, Ukraine on April 13, 2025 — Reuters photo

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that it was not easy to agree with the United States on the key parts of a possible peace deal to end the war in Ukraine and that Russia would never again allow itself to depend economically on the West.

US President Donald Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, has repeatedly said he wants to end the "bloodbath" of the three-year war in Ukraine, though a deal has yet to be agreed.

"It is not easy to agree the key components of a settlement. They are being discussed," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper when asked if Moscow and Washington had agreement on some aspects of a possible peace deal.

"We are well aware of what a mutually beneficial deal looks like, which we have never rejected, and what a deal looks like that could lead us into another trap," Lavrov said in the interview published in Tuesday's edition.

The Kremlin on Sunday said that it was too early to expect results from the restoration of more normal relations with Washington.

Lavrov said that Russia's position had been set out clearly by President Vladimir Putin in June 2024, when Putin demanded Ukraine must officially drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed by Russia.

"We're talking about the rights of the people who live on these lands. That is why these lands are dear to us. And we cannot give them up, allowing people to be kicked out of there," Lavrov said.

Russia currently controls a little under one fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and parts of four other regions Moscow now claims are part of Russia - a claim not recognised by most countries.

Lavrov praised Trump's "common sense" and for saying that previous US support of Ukraine's bid to join the NATO military alliance was a major cause of the war in Ukraine.

But Russia's political elite, he said, would not countenance any moves that led Russia back towards economic, military, technological or agricultural dependence on the West.

The globalisation of the world economy, Lavrov said, had been destroyed by sanctions imposed on Russia, China and Iran by the administration of former US President Joe Biden.

Biden, Western European leaders and Ukraine describe Russia's 2022 invasion as an imperial-style land grab, and repeatedly vowed to defeat Russian forces.

Putin casts the war in Ukraine as part of a battle with a declining West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 by enlarging the NATO military alliance and encroaching on what he considers Moscow's sphere of influence.​

 

[Saif]

Ukraine pounds Kursk with dozens of drones

Kyiv forces hit Russia’s Kursk region that borders Ukraine with dozens of drones, killing an elderly woman, injuring nine people and sparking fries in several buildings in the region’s administrative centre, Russian authorities said yesterday.

www.thedailystar.net

Ukraine pounds Kursk with dozens of drones
Says Russia; Kremlin claims no clear outline for US-Russia deal on Ukraine

Kyiv forces hit Russia's Kursk region that borders Ukraine with dozens of drones, killing an elderly woman, injuring nine people and sparking fries in several buildings in the region's administrative centre, Russian authorities said yesterday.

The Russian defence ministry, which releases data only on how many drones its forces destroy not how many Ukraine launches, said 109 drones were downed over the Kursk region overnight.

"Kursk has been subjected to a massive enemy attack overnight," the Kursk region administration said in a post on Telegram messaging app. "Unfortunately, an 85-year-old woman died."

A multi-storey apartment building was damaged in result of the drone attack, with several flats catching fire, acting mayor of Kursk, Sergei Kotlyarov said on Telegram. Residents have been evacuated to a nearby school, he added.

The region's administration posted photos of a multi-storey apartment building with blown out windows and fire damage to the facade.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin said yesterday that there is no clear outline of a US-Russia deal on Ukraine for now, but that there is political will to move in the direction of an agreement.​

 

[Saif]

Russian attacks kill three in Ukraine’s south, officials say

Russian attacks killed at least three people in Ukraine’s south and injured 10 more on Thursday, local authorities said, after an overnight barrage of missiles and drones. Two men, aged 56 and 61, were killed, and five more were wounded in artillery shelling on Nikopol, the regional governor

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Russian attacks kill three in Ukraine’s south, officials say
REUTERS
Published :
Apr 17, 2025 17:16
Updated :
Apr 17, 2025 17:16

A resident stands next to burned cars at the site of a Russian drone strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Dnipro, Ukraine Apr 17, 2025. Photo : REUTERS

Russian attacks killed at least three people in Ukraine’s south and injured 10 more on Thursday, local authorities said, after an overnight barrage of missiles and drones.

Two men, aged 56 and 61, were killed, and five more were wounded in artillery shelling on Nikopol, the regional governor said on the Telegram messenger.

He added that the attack sparked a fire and damaged a shop and civilian infrastructure.

One person was killed during a Russian air strike on Kherson, which also injured a teenager and four adults, the mayor said.

Moscow’s forces regularly attack both cities from their positions across the Dnipro River.

The Ukrainian air force said earlier that Russia had launched five missiles and 75 drones during an overnight attack, while Russia said it had destroyed or intercepted 71 Ukrainian drones over six Russian regions overnight.

The violence has continued despite President Donald Trump’s efforts to arrange a ceasefire in the three-year-old war prompted by Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine.

Top Ukrainian officials made a previously unannounced visit on Thursday to Paris, where European and US officials were due to hold talks on Ukraine.​

 

[Saif]

Zelensky urges pressure on Russia to end war

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday urged ‘pressure’ on Russia to end the three-year war as his top aides visited Paris for talks with US and EU officials on the conflict...

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Zelensky urges pressure on Russia to end war
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 17 April, 2025, 23:20

Volodymyr Zelensky. | AFP file photo

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday urged ‘pressure’ on Russia to end the three-year war as his top aides visited Paris for talks with US and EU officials on the conflict.

At least 10 people were reported killed and dozens wounded Thursday as Russia pounded Ukraine with drone strikes and shells.

‘Russia uses every day and every night to kill. We must put pressure on the killers to end this war and guarantee a lasting peace,’ Zelensky said in a Telegram post.

Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said he had arrived to Paris with foreign minister Andriy Sybiga and defence minister Rustem Umerov for talks with US, British, Germany and French officials — without saying with who.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio and Keith Kellogg, US president Donald Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, are meeting French president Emmanuel Macron on Thursday about crafting a ceasefire in Ukraine.

The meeting comes after a spate of deadly Russian air strikes on Ukrainian cities that has triggered outrage in Kyiv and Europe.

Zelensky’s office said his team in Paris will discuss ‘bringing peace to Ukraine.’

‘Among other things, the parties will discuss ways to implement a full and unconditional ceasefire, the deployment of a multinational military contingent to ensure security, and the further development of Ukraine’s security architecture,’ Ukraine’s presidency said in a statement.

The Kremlin dismissed the talks and accused Kyiv’s allies of wanting to drag out the war.

‘Unfortunately we see from Europeans a focus on continuing the war,’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists, when asked about what he expected from the talks.

Russia launched a ‘massive’ drone salvo overnight on the city of Dnipro that killed three and wounded more than 30, local governor Sergiy Lysak said.

Fires broke out at apartment blocks in the city after the attack.

Two more were killed in artillery strikes in Nikopol, down south from Dnipro, Lysak added, while local officials also reported fatalities in the frontline areas in the Donetsk and Kherson regions.

Russia’s army also claimed to have captured a small village in the eastern Donetsk region, where its troops have been grinding forward for months.​

 

[Saif]

Ukraine hits Chinese firms with sanctions after accusing Beijing of arming Russia

Ukraine imposed sanctions on three Chinese companies on Friday, a day after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy alleged that China had been supplying weapons to Russia. China's foreign ministry earlier on Friday dismissed Zelenskiy's accusation as groundless. While maintaining close economic ties with R

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Ukraine hits Chinese firms with sanctions after accusing Beijing of arming Russia
REUTERS
Published :
Apr 18, 2025 21:36
Updated :
Apr 18, 2025 21:36

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a press conference, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, April 4, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Alina Smutko/Files

Ukraine imposed sanctions on three Chinese companies on Friday, a day after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy alleged that China had been supplying weapons to Russia.

China's foreign ministry earlier on Friday dismissed Zelenskiy's accusation as groundless. While maintaining close economic ties with Russia during Moscow's three-year war in Ukraine, China has sought to project an image of neutrality and denies any involvement in the war.

Zelenskiy's administration on Friday published an updated list of sanctioned entities. The list, which also includes Russian companies, named Beijing Aviation And Aerospace Xianghui Technology Co Ltd, Rui Jin Machinery Co Ltd, and Zhongfu Shenying Carbon Fiber Xining Co Ltd, all described as registered in China.

It did not give details of why they had been added to the sanctions list, which bans companies from doing business in Ukraine and freezes their assets there.

Ukraine exported $8 billion of goods to China in 2021, mostly raw materials and agricultural products, while it imported from China just under $11 billion, mainly in manufactured goods, according to the Ukrainian government.

On Thursday, Zelenskiy told reporters in Kyiv his government had evidence that Chinese firms were supplying what he described as artillery and gunpowder to Russia, and that Chinese entities are making some weapons on Russian soil.

He did not offer any evidence for the assertion.

A week earlier, Zelenskiy had said Chinese nationals were fighting on Russia's side in the war with Ukraine, including two who had been taken prisoner. A Chinese diplomat was summoned to the Ukrainian foreign ministry to provide an explanation.

Ukrainian and US officials later said the men had signed up on their own initiative for money.

US President Donald Trump will walk away from trying to broker peace in Ukraine within days unless there are signs of progress, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday.​